Chords that Bind Ch. 07

This was absurd. "Like hell I'm giving you money."

Cecilia couldn't bear to hear this. The man in front of her was going to free her? Was it all coming to an end? The blonde man lifted her off the pedestal and put himself between her and Master. She hid behind his broad shoulders.

Lace was having none of this. He shut the door behind him, closing all three in the room. He was trying to maintain calm. He'd been in scrapes like this before, but he still had control. The only unacceptable outcome was loosing the girl. A slave like her would still command a high price. He could get a return on his investment, even if it wasn't off Ashton. "You can leave with her after you hand over six million pounds. What did you think you were doing? Was this supposed to be some dating ploy? A matchmaking service? Yeh had to 'ave an idea of what yeh were gettin' into. You knew exactly wha' yeh wanted. If you don't want her, that's fine. I'll find another buyer. But yeh can leave now."

Ashton looked at him in disgust. He took a few steps forward, and looked down on Lace, drawing on the latent aggression he usually contained. "She's leaving with me. Enough!"

Lace was fully appreciating how much taller and bigger Ashton was. To balance the scales he reached into his jacket pocket. "Back away from me."

James felt the snub-nosed revolver press against his abdomen. He took a step back. "Tha's right. I'm calling the shots here."

Gerry felt so satisfied to see the refined and superficial 'knight' look worried. He wasn't going to be a problem. He didn't have any actual fight in him. Ashton wasn't any real hero that Lace would have to concern himself with. Reality was so clear when you were looking down the barrel of a gun.

He strode over to Cecilia, and held the gun to her head. "Kneel." He growled dangerously.

Cecilia slowly got to her knees. She had been so close. For a moment she had believed she was free. The blonde man shouted, "Wait just a second! Leave her out of this!"

Gerry pointed the gun at Ashton. "This is how this is going to work. You don't want the girl. Fine. But I'll not have you spoiling my investment. Now walk towards the door."

James moved instead towards Lace, refusing to be ordered around by a scoundrel.

Lace saw where he was going and took another tactic. Ashton wasn't exerting good sense. He pointed the gun at the kneeling girl. "Take one more step towards me and I'll shoot her." Lace saw that his bluff worked. Ashton didn't move. "Walk backwards and out to the corridor. Nice and slow like."

James didn't know what else to do. He was in no position to argue. He took a step back. "That's it. Keep going." Lace was enjoying having power over him. James took more steps. Once Ashton was at the door, her took the butt of the gun and knocked Cecilia out cold in one swift motion. Cecilia gasped in exclamation and collapsed without another complaint. He was going to deal with her later.

"Now. I'm going to take you back to London, and you'll forget this ever happened. You think of yerself as too much of a gentleman to have the slave you ordered? Well and good, but there are men very willing to pay me what that little slave is worth." He kept prodding Ashton with the gun. They were already out in the driveway. "I fancy you'll drive. After you're back in London you can forget about me, about what you want, about her. And you won't be mentioning this to the coppers."

"The hell I won't!"

"Now there Jimmy, I think yer mistaken 'bout that. I have emails Jimmy. Loads of emails with yer instructions. Don't think I'll be going down without yeh goin' down wit me."

James didn't know what to say to this. In some convoluted way Lace actually believed that James orchestrated the kidnapping of the poor girl. And now he was blackmailing him. This was madness. But it was also chaos, and James had no hand to play. He put the Benz into gear and took off.

Lace was gesturing the revolver at his head. "I'd drive more carefully Jimmy-boy. You wouldn't want me to accidentally pull the trigger. Now drive us back to London will yeh?"

It took everything in James' power not to ram the car into a tree. But taking himself out with Lace wasn't going to help the girl that he had left behind. So he drove like a model citizen back to London. Now Lace knew where he lived. They had exchanged emails. He was in the most compromised position he had ever been in. The entire drive back to London Lace spent humming nonchalantly to himself, as if this were nothing more than a pleasant day trip. James cursed himself for what he had set in motion.

As they pulled up to his townhouse, Lace turned to him. "Alright Jimmy-boy, that could've been worse eh? Now you'll remember to forget all this. I'll drive meself back home. And if you get any cunning ideas, I'd keep them to myself if I was you. If I see you on my property I'll shoot the girl and ask questions later. Do we have an understanding?"

"Yes." The word hissed between James' teeth. What a yellow cowardly villain! Goddamnit! How could he have been so stupid? He waited to watch the car pull calmly away. He went to his studio, poured himself a stiff drink and contemplated the options, staring into the toffee-coloured liquor, recalling everything that had led up to him making this horrendous misstep.

Josephine had just left him, revealing in her actions that she had never loved him, never felt anything for him, but only for his social standing and reputation. He had gone mad she claimed, why would a Queen's Counsel and Member of Parliament choose to throw it all away to pursue music? She didn't care about the turmoil his love of music created in his childhood, that he had been repressing an artist's soul and passion underneath respectability and normative masks. James' decision to finally make himself happy had cost him the one-sided relationship. He had been shocked and heartbroken to find out that Josephine had more in common with his mother and father than he realized. She wasn't truly alive, and she didn't truly love, but James had trusted her enough to reveal himself, and been scorned in the process. Josephine hadn't been submissive either. All the latent qualities of demure submissiveness that James had been enamoured with had been manipulations.

James wanted a real submissive now. Now that he had tossed aside his barrister's wig, he might as well seek out a relationship that would fulfill the void that he had been hiding for years, he scanned the internet looking for underground lifestyle meeting spots and chat rooms. 'Submissive Paramours' had been the result of a drunken Internet search. It rubbed James the wrong way at first, but the site claimed to train submissive women who wanted to find placement in the lifestyle with alpha men. Further exploration made it seem like a dating site, or a social networking platform. Maybe there was a tawdry escort-service feel to some of the services offered, but James was intrigued. The dynamic would already be in place: if he found a girl this way, there would be no false expectations, no disappointments from his submissive that he indulged in his desires to more fully possess the woman to whom he was attached. He set himself up with a free account, allowing him to peruse profiles and pictures of women who wanted a man to want her the way he needed. But hours of flicking through different women and shallow descriptions of their 'dream dom' felt superficial, and nothing spoke to him. They all seemed so ready to put absolute control at the feet of anyone, not bothering to have personalities of their own. That disappointment led James to write his letter to Lace, the man who proctored the website.

James knew better now, the website had been a front for Lace, a way to appear marginally respectable while making money victimizing innocent women.

After a pull of the scotch, he threw the crystal glass against the wall and yelled his frustration. Years of doing things properly, of making everyone else happy, and as soon as he indulged himself in his own proclivities he landed himself in deep water. He'd always known his desires were traits of a dark monster, but now he was facing it, and had trapped someone else in the process.

James' best friend Abraham emerged from the steps leading to his attic studio. "Something you want to share with the class?"